Stop Shrinking
The 1 simple prompt to create an elevator speech that lands with confidence
Have you ever had the experience of starting something new, feeling the spark of a really good idea, and slowly beginning to build it? There is an energy that comes with it. Sometimes it is the kind that bubbles over in conversation like an overflowing glass of champagne. The essence begins to rise to the top and before you know it, you want to talk about it. Share it. Let it out into the world.
Interestingly, I once heard that ideas like this should be safeguarded and protected until they are fully bloomed. That the earliest stage of something new is like a seed. Full of potential but not yet strong enough to withstand the elements. The suggestion was simple. Let it take root before exposing it to too much outside air.
That is not entirely in my nature. I have always been something of an open book. When I am excited about something, my instinct is to share it. To bring people into the conversation. To say out loud what I am up to.
But more recently I have started to wonder if there is wisdom in protecting the seed.
Because there is another experience that often follows those early sparks of inspiration.
You begin telling people about the idea and the reaction lands flat. Someone changes the subject. Someone offers a polite nod but does not ask another question. Or perhaps there is no response at all. Or worse yet, you see their expression and can almost hear the words they are saying in their head, “Oh, that’s cute.” and “what is she thinking?”
And suddenly you find yourself doing something subtle but familiar.
You start shrinking.
The enthusiasm softens. The clarity fades just a bit. Without even realizing it, you begin explaining the thing you are building with language that feels almost apologetic.
I know this pattern well because I have lived it more times than I can count.
Over the course of my life, I have started businesses, launched programs, built communities, and stepped into new professional chapters that at one time felt both exciting and slightly terrifying. The funny thing is that when I look back, many of those ideas were good ones. Some of them turned into beautiful and meaningful work and still exist and thrive today.
And almost every time there were a few conversations that made me hesitate.
Someone who did not seem interested. Someone who did not acknowledge what I was up to. Someone who would ask about everything else in my life but that one thing.
A couple of weekends ago, I found myself talking about this exact dynamic with another author who also teaches at a law school. And not just a law school, a nationally ranked and highly regarded law school.
Think about that for a moment. Teaching law students is no small thing. These are rooms full of people who are hungry to learn from someone who has spent years developing the knowledge and experience they are only beginning to understand.
And yet there we were having the same conversation.
Neither of us was fully owning what we were doing.
If we were honest, we were both up to amazing things. She is shaping future attorneys. Through my writing, I have grown a community and a business in ways I never imagined possible.
And yet both of us could easily name people in our lives who never ask about it.
Those are the people that make us shrink.
Not the readers who send messages about something that resonated deeply. Not the students sitting in a classroom taking notes. Not the people who say thank you for sharing something that helped them see their own lives a little differently.
Those voices should be the ones that matter.
Those are the voices that should put us on a podium with a microphone speaking confidently about what we are building.
But somehow it is the silence of a few people that carries disproportionate weight.
What the hell is that about?
Instead of saying clearly what we are doing, we introduce it with language that shrinks the idea before it even has a chance to stand on its own.
We say things like, I am just trying something new. Or it is no big deal.
I hear it all the time.
And if I am being completely honest, I have heard it come out of my own mouth too. Literally, I have said more than once, “oh yeah, I have made some fun purse money.” Thousands of dollars later and I evaporate my worth to fun money? I owe myself a sincere apology for diminishing my own return.
And yes, maybe there is a need to protect the idea before it fully blooms.
But this isn’t about protecting ideas.
This is about owning who you are in those moments. Stepping up with clarity. Being bold.
It doesn’t require acting lessons or pretending to be someone you’re not. It’s about declaring what you are doing.
And more than anything it requires clarity.
I think that this is the part we struggle the most with when someone asks what we are up to. We aren’t ready for it, and the words come out tangled.
There is a surprisingly simple way to shift this. Which is what we talked about and decided both of us need.
The simple elevator speech.
And when I say speech, what I mean is 2-3 sentences that land with clarity, conviction, and confidence.
Not exaggerated. Not polished like a marketing pitch.
Just clear.
I am tired of fumbling. I am even more exhausted by my own shrinking.
Here’s what I created to avoid that rabbit hole again.
Instead of saying I have been trying to write a little more lately, it might sound like this.
I have a publication called The Preferred Edit about intentional living and refinement and it has grown into a community of readers who are learning how to edit their lives with more clarity and purpose.
Or in my girlfriend’s case,
Instead of saying I am teaching a few days a week.
I teach law students how to think like practicing attorneys so they can step into the profession with confidence.
Nothing inflated.
Just the truth.
The Prompt
If you are not sure how to craft that sentence for yourself, this is actually where artificial intelligence earns its keep. Sometimes the most useful thing it can do is hand you a starting point that you then make your own.
Open your AI tool and give it this prompt.
Write a one-sentence description of what I am building. It should sound confident, clear, and conversational. Avoid corporate language and keep it natural.
Then tell it three things.
What you are creating or doing
Who it is meant to serve
Why it matters
It will give you a starting point that you can refine into your own words.
Once you have that sentence, practice saying it. Not as a performance but simply enough that it feels familiar.
Because the next time someone asks what you are up to, you will not feel the need to shrink. You will not need to soften the edges of your own ambition.
You will simply tell the truth.
And something interesting tends to happen when we do that.
The people who are curious lean in.
The people who are not interested move on.
And slowly you begin to understand something important.
The people who never ask about what you are building were never the audience for it in the first place.
The real audience is the person who reads your work and quietly says “this landed exactly when I needed it”
Those are the people who are there to remind you to shine.
Always EDITing,
Leslie
Guilty.